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Millie heard the sound of arrival. She thought it might be Alistair and she walked around the back of the camp to meet him, but saw Rupert Hatchard coming towards her. She hurried to him, smiling.

He didn’t smile. As he came nearer, she realized that something serious had come up and that it must be pretty bad. She stopped in front of him.

“I’m glad I found you alone,” he said. “I have bad news.”

“I know. I can see.”

“He’s dead. He told me if anything ever went wrong, I was to come to you and tell you the truth. He has enemies. People are always telling lies about him. It was Hart and McBride who did it.”

She moved her mouth, to ask what had happened. Her throat had almost closed. She put her hands out, as if to protect herself.

“He tried to keep the poachers away from his territory. They knew they couldn’t do anything in his country, so they set out to nobble him. They wouldn’t even do it themselves. They paid other men to do it for them. That means they’ll be caught in the end, of course, but that’s small comfort.”

“No,” Millie said.

“He trusted me with—because I said how much I liked you.”

“Yes, I see. I’m glad. I’m glad I heard it from you, but I can’t think. I don’t want it to be true.”

“I brought your letters. I thought you’d want me to.”

“Of course. That was thoughtful. That was kind.” Her voice faded away. She closed her eyes.

“He was so good to Isabel,” he said. “And me, naturally. He gave me no end of gen for the books. In fact, he was the one who made me believe I could do it. He could make you believe in yourself.”

“Oh, yes. More than anybody I ever met, made you love the world. So much fun. I can’t stand it. To be happy, finally. Did they hurt him? Say they didn’t. Say it was quick.”

She was in tears, snorting, spluttering, holding her head in her hands. He led her over to the landrover. A second man—an additional driver, or perhaps just a friend—who had been leaning against the fender, moved away. Rupert made her sit down inside.

While she cried, he told her that the four hired men had tried to make it look like any other drunken fight in a bar, but there were witnesses. And they would talk. Harry was greatly loved by many people, and also greatly feared. There were those who would testify to the truth because they were superstitiously convinced of the power he might have to avenge himself on them, even after death, if they didn’t. At least a dozen bystanders knew the men’s names. Six who were willing to speak had actually seen three of the four pinion him while the fourth cut his throat.

“I don’t believe they’ll live to be brought to book,” Rupert said. “And I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of Marcus Hart or Pat McBride. Every man, woman and child in Harry’s territory will be out for blood, you’ll see.”

Millie wailed, “I loved him so much. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve died. I hate everything.”

He patted her on the back, smoothed her hair, put the small bundle of letters into her lap.

“It must have been instantaneous,” he said. “And he was fighting hard—that would have lessened any pain. He
loved you too. He kept saying: when Millie and I do this, when Millie and I do that. I can’t really believe it either, even now. I’m not a man who has many friends. I never had the knack of making friends. And now he’s gone.”

“We prepared,” Nicholas translated, “for the feast, for the bride who would come. All the village … um … Hang on. Right. This isn't the central village, but it's near.” He asked a question, was drawn into a conversation, and spoke at some length. The answer was even longer.

Stan shifted his gaze from the man sitting opposite them to the brown roofs of the huts beyond. Everything outside the canopied shade where they sat appeared vibrant with light, effervescent, almost ready to burst into flame. He could hear children's voices coming from a place far beyond any point to which his line of vision reached.

Nicholas said, “They all prepared for the big feast and the god was supposed to put in an appearance with the bride, but now they're going to celebrate it in a different way because he's returned to his people—this is where it's confusing, because they talk about themselves as his people, too. But I think the idea is that he's gone back to the lion.”

“That's great. That's the kind of thing I need.”

“And he's going to take the bride with him. She's human.”

“Are these ceremonies going to involve human sacrifice?”

“I hadn't thought of that.”

“It sounds right. Ask him.”

“Certainly not. I wouldn't want to offend him by
mentioning it. And if it were true, there'd be no hope of getting a straight answer.”

“You think they might tether a girl out in the open at night and let the lions come for her?”

“I suppose that's why they made you a professor, for dreaming up ideas like that.”

Nicholas spoke to the tribesman again. And all at once, Stan wondered if everything he and Nicholas had just said to each other had been understood. When the man answered and his words were again translated, Stan felt angry at himself for not having waited until afterwards to talk freely.

“There's going to be food, drink, a lot of dances, and singing. They're going to tell the story of the god. They'll make a doll, dress it up, have a parade, enormous, to the sacred place, and leave the statue of the bride for the god to come for it. All the villages in the district are going to take part. No outsiders. That means us.”

“Oh, but surely if we—”

“No. Not even outsiders who are near neighbours. No one who doesn't come from this part of the country. They believe it, you see. It's their religion. I've never heard of it. And there's a lot that he says it wouldn't be right to talk about.”

“Ask what the god was like when he was in his human form.”

Through Nicholas, the man said, “The old men loved him, the women loved him, the children loved him, the young people; everyone loved him. He made us happy. He made us laugh. He made us rich.”

“Rich?” Stan said. “How?”

The tribesman looked shaken for a moment. Then, when Nicholas asked, he pointed to his heart.

Contrary to Stan's expectations, they hadn't had to eat or drink anything, or watch any show. They had been escorted to a deserted corner of the village and now, as they left, could hear the small, high voices singing a lively song, but still could not see anyone. The children were in another part of the place. He was about to ask if they could look around, or see the singers but Nicholas sent him a swift, cautioning wink and made a lengthy thank-you speech. Judging by something in the tone of his voice, Stan assumed it to be extremely ornate. He added his own short thanks in English and had his words translated, although he was sure by now that it wasn't necessary.

As they drove away, Nicholas said, “Something isn't right.”

Stan started to talk about Jack's theory that the whole business was just a cover for an ordinary protection racket.

“I was thinking of something else,” Nicholas said. “There's been a bloody great epidemic of poaching in the past few years. Ivory. That means riches, even shared out among a few villages. But the place they kept telling me was the centre of the ceremony—I know it. That's Harry Lewis's district. Not great elephant country. Still—if the business went on somewhere else, but the songs about the leader started up in another place … no, that's no good. I don't suppose it could be that they're all just songs like any others and people sing them for pleasure? And then they begin to compete against each other, to see who can make the best song? I must say, they don't look wonderfully prosperous here. Not unusually so.”

“Is this guy Lewis connected with poaching?”

“On the contrary. But he'd know about anything that went on there. It's the village he recruits most of his men from. They practically worship him there.”

“Oh,” Stan called out suddenly. He had caught sight of a striped balloon up in the sky. “There's the love-nest,” he said. “Purple and black, very nice.” In his dream, the balloon had been red.

“It's a dark blue, in fact. Mauve and blue.”

“It looks like it's going pretty fast.”

“Hard to tell. The light can be deceptive. As you know.”

“That land over there, where it's headed. And back beyond the rise there for forty miles or so—what else can you tell me about it?”

“Like what?”

“People, game.”

“Six—I think about six—villages. And a lot of lion.”

“More than in other areas?”

“Much more. It's like a game park. I think the people there must have a closed season on them at certain times of the year. Antelope, zebra, and so on, but those are in a normal ratio to other areas. The lion there are in a very concentrated high number.”

“A local system of open and closed hunting would be enough to account for it?”

“And if they keep people out. It would have to be agreed. I don't know anything for certain in any case. Only a guess.”

“Have you ever come across anything you could call lion worship here—a religious cult of some kind?”

“No. Why? You don't think this is the spot marked X, do you?”

Stan's face was still directed up into the air but he said, “Well, it's beginning to look like it.”

*

“Be a dear and look at my eye, would you?” Pippa asked.
Rupert leaned over her face. Millie looked out at the bright ground, the hot sky. She turned away from the light.

When Ian returned to camp, Pippa walked out to meet him. Millie heard them stop outside her tent where she sat with her head leaning against her fists.

Ian said, “Binkie? What's he doing here?”

“He's brought some dreadful news. Harry Lewis has been killed. Let's have a drink. I was waiting for you.”

“You've been crying, too,” he said. “Your eyes—no, it's only the one. One of your eyes is red as anything.”

“It's the same one you looked at. A filament from a grain or a seed—it flew on to the cornea and stuck there. Binkie said the tissues were about to grow over it.”

They walked away, talking in low voices. Millie didn't move. Much later she heard another landrover drive towards the car park. She rolled over on her cot and put her arm across her eyes. She was lying in the same position when Stan entered the tent.

He talked about the events of the day, about Bernhard's balloon and the interview with the men in the village. She told him that Rupert Hatchard had come out from town, but Stan interrupted. The folktale was more interesting. As he spoke, he became increasingly engrossed in the subject of the lion god.

“No wedding, after all,” she said.

“That's the interesting part. This is where I think it leads to human sacrifice.”

“Oh no, Stan. I don't think so.”

“Well, I do. And it's my field. The only trouble is, we're going to have a hell of a time trying to get in there to take a look at what's going on. Residents only.”

“If it really is their religion, why would they want outsiders?”

“Why not?”

“Not if he's just died.”

“Died?”

“Gone back to his people, you said.”

“Oh, I see. Well—”

“They might ask you to a wedding, but not to a funeral.”

“But this is supposed to be the wedding. Nicholas thinks it might be connected with ivory poachers.”

“Oh?”

“You really don't feel so good?”

“I've felt a little knocked out by the sun lately.”

“Come have a drink?”

“I don't think so.”

He leaned over and put the heel of his hand on to her forehead.

“My father used to do that when I was a child,” she said. “I can't feel anything that way. My hands are always colder than my forehead, at least I think they are. I can only find out by using the inside of my wrist. Actually, I can't even tell that way.”

“Come keep me company,” he said.

“All right. I'll be along in a minute.”

When she sat down in the dining tent, Ian was telling Stan, “We've had some bad news. A friend of ours has died.”

“Oh. That's too bad. I'm sorry.” Stan looked at the rest of the company and said, “I guess it was unexpected? Not old age or sickness?”

“He was murdered,” Rupert said. “Although some people are saying it was suicide.”

“Impossible,” Pippa and Nicholas both said.

“And other people claim his ex-wife's family had a hand
in it.”

Millie said, “That's nonsense. He got along very well with all of them.”

“I know. You wouldn't credit what some of our
self-appointed
expert gossipmongers will say. One of the stories these people have hit on is that he was trying to get custody of the children.”

“He could see them whenever he wanted to,” Millie said. “And he had lots of other children, too. Nobody who knew him would take that seriously.”

“Who is this guy?” Stan asked.

“Henry Lewis,” Millie told him. “He was at that party we went to. You know, at Colonel Armstrong's house.”

“How can you tell all that from only meeting him once?”

“He was one of those people you know right away,” she said, “as though you've known them for years. I just fell in love with him.”

“Yes,” Pippa said. “I can't think of him gone.”

“I'm beginning to get the feeling we went to different parties,” Stan said.

“You were talking about
sub judice
for an hour and a half in the next room and getting plastered. Remember?”

“Sure. What's happened about that? The man that got pushed out of his car in the game park.”

“Even more theories about that,” Rupert said.

“What's the odds?” Ian asked.

“The woman will get off. And—it's curious you should say that. Thousands of people are making book on it. I think the three of them will be acquitted in the end. They're backing each other up, that's the main thing. Afterwards they can thrash out the question of who gets what. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Yes, I suppose there's money in it, too,” Pippa said.
“That always makes crime interesting.”

“It makes crime happen,” said Nicholas. Ian took a deep breath and let it go. He ran a hand over his face. Pippa made a tentative motion towards her bad eye and stopped. They all had extra drinks; all, except Millie.

After dinner Stan said to her that he'd like to take a walk but Nicholas had warned him not to, because of the lion.

“That was weird,” she told him. “He walked straight towards me, like he was going to come right up to my face and say hello.”

“You must have been paralysed.”

“I was like somebody who's stuck his finger in the light socket. Thrilled and shocked. And I knew—totally, all over—that nothing I could do would stop it. If Nicholas hadn't spoken, I think I'd have started to go out of my mind. I mean it. I had this feeling that he'd come to get me. It was so strange. I can't describe it. If he hadn't intended to charge, I'd have done something to make him. I wouldn't have been able to help it.”

“Panic.”

“Um.”

“This guy, Lewis. What was he like?”

“Wonderful. He was wonderful.”

“I just realized, he's the same one Ian told me about, who got his brotherhood spearing a lion.”

“Yes, he told me about that.”

“You two sure covered a lot of ground in an hour and a half.”

“Yes. I told you. It was like meeting someone you've known all your life.”

“I know. Parties. It helps to be drunk.”

Millie thought:
I should say it now, that I wasn't drunk and neither was he. We saw each other through the window that day in
town, and the next morning he picked me up and asked me to his rooms and we went there, and went to bed and stayed there for the next seven hours. And at that party, too, we were in a room at the back. We were going to get married. And we're having a baby.

“But what was he like?”

“A man of action. Bold, ardent, playful, fun, generous. No wonder they hated him.”

“Who?”

“Racketeers, or whatever they are. Running a business poaching and selling ivory. But they couldn't do it out of his territory, because all his people were loyal to him.”

“What people, Millie?”

“Oh, he had this job once with the game department and everybody in the area treated him as if he were an official from before Independence: they used to come to him about any disputes, and so on. He had a big reputation already because of the lions. He could call them, make them come out and lie down near him and they wouldn't hurt him. He said it was just a trick, that you did it by the voice, like that man down in Georgia your mother told us about, who could call crows.”

“You'd need plenty of nerve.”

“Well, he had that.”

She was crying, but silently. Stan didn't notice.